Saturday, April 02, 2016

Mensahi Ginen i Gehilo' #12: The Pacific is Not Complete Without Guam...

In just 50 days, more than two dozen Pacific Island nations will gather in Guam for the 12th Festival of Pacific Arts or FESTPAC. Although geographically Guam's presence in the Pacific cannot be questioned, culturally and politically due to its history of colonization, the island and its native people, the Chamorros are regularly treated differently. As if they are a part of the Pacific, yet also exist apart from it as well.

There’s a great website out there
for those who are colonialism and political status geeks such as myself called Overseas Territories Review. It features regular updates on different
currently-existing-colonies out there in the world (most of which are small
islands like Guam in the Caribbean or the Pacific) and some commentary on what
sort of challenges they might face as they try to change their colonial status.
The website is run by Dr. Carlyle Corbin, an expert on decolonization and the
various remaining colonies in the world, who has visited Guam several times.

It is interesting when I
periodically check up on other territories and colonies to see hafa guaguaha guihi. Sometimes it is an
experience akin to looking in the mirror and discovering that the reflection,
which looks so much like you, is in truth somebody else! Other times it feels
like reading a book which everyone around you tells you that you will love,
that is totally everything you look for in a book, which will truly connect
with you, but which ends up feeling like a gross invasion, a horrid
misrepresentation of who you are or what you like, when you reach the end.

Stalking other colonies can sometimes create in me, feelings
of jealousy and envy at how much better they have it, how much stronger they
seem to be, about how much less strategically important they are, or how much
more-together the activists or the progressives there are about their issues.
And of course, in the cases of some colonies, which are now states, (although
their indigenous people might rightfully claim otherwise), I have to look at
them and emit a sigh of relief that I am not in their position. Although there
may be a mountain of racist, exceptionalist and self-serving American legal balabola which keeps Guam as a
possession and something owned by the United States, at least I have that
shred, that small sliver of possibility that its unincorporated status gives,
where Guam might be free again.

With the notion of Guam being free again, I am reminded of
an article from the magazine The Nation earlier
this year. Titled “Outrageous Fortuno” it was meant to provide an update to the
people of the United States, about what the current state of affairs in Puerto
Rico, and what prospects the island has in terms of its own struggle for
decolonization. “Fortuno” in the title is meant to refer to Luis Fortuno,
former non-voting delegate from Puerto Rico and current governor of the island,
who has according to the article’s author Ed Morales, helped turn Puerto Rico
into a “political powder keg,” through a combination of merciless slashing of
government programs, the laying off of thousands of government employees and
various strategies meant to coerce the island towards becoming the 51st
state. The article ends with the following passage, the final sentence of which
struck a chord with me.

For many Puerto Ricans, the current problems stem from a
deeper, much more long-term malaise: the island’s unsettled political status.
Yet another plebiscite proposal, which critics say is stacked toward getting
Puerto Ricans to vote for statehood, is creeping through the House in
Washington. Now more than ever, it’s time for a strong coalition of Puerto
Ricans on the island and the US mainland to come up with an alternative–a
people’s movement, perhaps seeking stronger economic ties to the Caribbean and
Latin America, to demand social justice for 4 million effectively second-class
US citizens.

As Residente [a
Puerto Rican rapper] said on MTV, “Latin America is not complete without Puerto
Rico, and Puerto Rico is not free.”

Para
bei tulaika este didide’ ya i humuyongña: The Pacific is not complete without
Guam, and Guam is not free. I like
the sound of that. It is a great way of arranging together a dream, a goal and
a problem into a fairly poetic phrasing.

That relationship that Puerto Rico has to the world of Latin
America applies to Guam and the Pacific. We are, in our own way, an island eternally
trapped between worlds, fitting into neither and pulled between two forms of
impossible belonging. This island was the first in the Pacific to be colonized
by Europe, and there is a very good chance that it will be the last to ever be
decolonized. Just as Puerto Rico and other Caribbean colonies represent the
horizon of their decolonization, the challenge in their building a stronger
regional future, Guam and other tiny island colonies represent the same for the
Pacific. What lies ahead for the Pacific, what sort of future it can create
with its diversity of islands, governments and people will depend largely on
whether places like Guam are snatched up in order to complete the region, or
condemned to remain colonial footnotes which the world would rather forget
exist.

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Put Guahu / About Me

This blog is dedicated to Chamorro issues, the use and revitalization of the Chamoru language and the decolonization of Guam. This blog also aims to inform people around the world about the history, culture and language and struggles of the Chamorro people, who are the indigenous islanders of Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Luta and Pagan in the Mariana Islands. Pues Haggannaihon ha', ya taitai na'ya, ya Si Yu'us Ma'ase para i finatto-mu.

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The Revolution Will Not Be Haolified

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE HAOLIFIEDTinige’ as Guahu - 2003 (updated 2008)

You will not be able to ignore it che’lu * This time you will not be able to blame it all on Anghet * You will not be able to change channels * And watch Fear Factor, Rev TV of Salamat Po Guam because * The Revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised, nor will it be advertised * It will not be sponsored by the Good Guys at Moylan’s or the better guys at AK. * It will not be something easily explained by radio callers * Whether they be Positively Local, Definitively Settler, or Surprisingly Coconut * It will not be cornered by the Calvos and explained by Sabrina Salas * Matanane * After the story about the incoming B-52’s or 1000’s of Marines careening towards to Guam, and how we * should be economically energized and not terrorized. * Jon Anderson will have no TT anecdotes about it * and Chris Barnett won’t malafunkshun it because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised or editorialized * It will not be something canabilized with two inches here two inches there * Dubious headlines everywhere * Lee Weber will not edit it * Joe Murphy will not put it in his pipe and smoke it * Nor dream about it, or tell others the wonders and blunders of it. * There will be no letters to the editor quoting scriptures or denying its constitutionality * And there will be no American flag inserts saying these three colors just don’t run * As the revolution will not be editorialized

The revolution will not be televised or politicized * It will not play the same old gayu games * And promise you that same old talonan things. * The revolution will not wave at you as you drive by on Marine Drive * And seduce you with its hardworking eyes. * It will not be territorial or popular, and not encourage you with maolek blue. * The revolution will not put marang salaman po after its speeches to get more Filipino votes in the next election because the revolution will not be politicized

The revolution will not be televised, not be theorized * It will not be something GCC or UOG friendly. * There will be no books at Bestseller offering to help you lose something in 90 days * Or Rachel Ray helping you cook the revolution of your way. * Ron McNinch will not survey it * and will not poll people about their revolution of choice. * There will be no WASC review report demanding accountability demanding autonomy * And no beachcombing carpetbaggers will proclaim their own terminal authority * Over the histories, the laws, the thinking of those for whom they see nothing but corrupt and corrupting inferiority * The revolution will not be colonized

The revolution will not be televised, not be supersized. * The revolution will not be something you can buy at Ross, or get at blue light cost * It is not just red rice, kelaguan uhang, or popcorn with Tobacco sauce. * It doesn’t come with Coke and it doesn’t fit on a fiesta plate. * The revolution will not make you gof sinexy, cure your jafjaf, or make fragrant your fa’fa’ * The revolution will not force you to be where America’s empire begins * Or where Japan’s golf courses and Gerry Yingling’s credit card debt ends. * You won’t need a credit card, or be charged for the tin foil to cover your balutan * As the revolution will not be economized

The revolution will not be televised, blownback or militarized * There will be no more physical ordnance buried in people’s lands * And no more patrionizing propaganda buried in people’s minds * The revolution will not get you cheaper cases of chicken or increased commissary privileges. * It will not make freedomless flags feel more comfortable in your hands * Or make uniforms fit more snugly around your mind. * The revolution will not deny racism or exploitation * And not create histories about landfalls of destiny * But instead publicize the racism and evils of American hegemony. * The revolution will not be subsidized by construction contracts or the race of Senator Inouye or Congressman Burton * It will not be laid waste to by daisy cut budgets or Medicare spending limits * Instead it will be sustained by deep memories that refuse to die * The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised and will not polarize based on blood or color * It will not make your skin lighter * It will not make your skin darker * It will not test your blood the way Hitler or Uncle Sam would of done * It will not hate some and love others based on their time of naturalization * Or incept date of their compacts of free association. * But the revolution will help some find comfort, find strength, find power * In their connections to the land and to each other * Allow some to discover the sovereignty that can be found in solidarity * The revolution will take and remake this consciousness that doesn’t need to be televised * But does need to be revolutionized * The revolution will not be haolified * The revolution will not be haolified